1. Field of the Art
The disclosure relates to the field of electronic multimedia playback, and more particularly to the field of broadcasting multimedia content to mobile receiver devices.
2. Discussion of the State of the Art
Today there are many mobile devices such as multimedia players, smartphones, tablet computers, or other various mobile electronic devices, that have the ability to play media to a wireless playback device (such as a speaker, stereo receiver, or television) over a radio-based wireless link such as BLUETOOTH™ or WiFi wireless data transmission protocols. If the user desires to play the media on multiple devices (for example, multiple separate “satellite” speakers) and place the devices at distances that are larger than the range of their wireless transmission (generally no more than 100 feet under ideal conditions, depending on the nature of the wireless protocols or devices being used), there is no good mechanism available.
Additionally, a user might desire to broadcast media to multiple devices with differing wireless capabilities, such as a mixture of BLUETOOTH™ and WiFi speakers. Ordinarily, this would not be possible as a broadcast can only utilize a single wireless radio or other transmission means at any given time, so the user would be restricted to only using the speakers that share similar wireless capabilities. Additionally, BLUETOOTH™ is very prevalent in mobile device hardware (such as in smartphone radio hardware), so it may be convenient to play using BLUETOOTH™ to a first playback device such as using a smartphone and then have this first playback device play to one or more additional playback devices, using WiFi that provides longer range and greater information bandwidth, allowing the devices to be placed much further apart and play in high resolution.
What is needed, is a system to broadcast media content to a plurality of media receiver devices, at least some of which may be positioned further than the maximum transmission distance from the media source, and that may enable the use of multiple different transmission protocols within a single broadcast.